Discussion about the ‘day-after’ is ramping up even though the primary missions of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages are far from complete. The day-after issue deals with the need for a transition plan to ensure that October 7 will never again recur. Rarely mentioned is the equally vital issue of the ‘2nd day after’– will the Jewish world sustain the extraordinary unity that has not been seen since the War of Independence? When Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powell asked, “Well doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it”. Regarding the newfound unity in Israel, the question for the 2nd day after is, “Can we keep it?”
The day-after plan for Gaza requires a prolonged process of installing a government that does not pay terrorists to murder Jews and importantly transforms the culture so that 86% of the Palestinian Arabs no longer support the October 7 massacre that murdered, dismembered, raped, and abused non-combatant women, men, children, and elderly.
Denazification transformed equally evil Germans with great success and benefit to their country. A generation or two of re-educating the youth and incentivizing the adults of Gaza must transform the Palestinian Arab culture of Jew hatred if peace is ever to be attained.
The 2nd day after requires a Jewish cultural change of a different sort but no less profound. Jews have a deep, millennial old propensity to unite when the enemy is at our neck, only to revert precipitously to be at our own necks once the external enemy is vanquished or recedes. Aside from the necessities of war, Jews eschew physical violence but can kill with their words. Many noted that times of affluence with no external enemy were more threatening to Jewish identity than times such as the present when our spirit of unity rallies to defeat a bitter foe.
Immediately preceding the vicious attack by Hamas, Israel was tearing itself asunder about the judicial review issue, displaying shameful screaming bouts in the Knesset, and engaging in family feuds with an angry diaspora. Iran and its proxies sensed this as weakness, which beyond a doubt prompted the timing of the attack. Our enemies misjudged the extent of weakness because they failed to consider the unity and strength of purpose that we will find when circumstances allow and when existentially attacked. This cycle of Jews indulging in disunity and brother hatred until we are attacked, and only then coming together, results in the loss of precious Jewish lives, and much more.
In modern Israel, circumstances have allowed us to unite with strength in 1948, in 1967, and again in 2023. Today we are militarily strong and will be victorious. But for millennia the disunity brought more lasting devastation. The Second Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred and disunity. The reasons cited for the fall of the First Temple were idol worship, forbidden relations, and bloodshed; but disunity was also present, perhaps more among the leaders than the common people or to a lesser degree. Around 975 BCE, after Solomon’s death, disunity over the financial strain of heavy taxation led to the split of Israel into the Southern Kingdom of Judah (Jerusalem) and the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria). Disunity = Disaster.
Today, 1000 years later, modern Israelis have felt on the brink of a civil war about political differences, and 39% were exploring citizenship in other countries. Whatever one’s opinion on the issues, it’s puzzling that the way judges are selected would lead to weekly protests of 100,000 and to some anticipating civil war. America understandably fought a bitter war over the dehumanizing system of slavery. But today, even though the views about abortion are fiercely debated and culture wars threaten unity, civil war has not been on the table.
Jews are a passionate people, proverbially with at least 2 opinions in every dialogue. Our Middle Eastern intensity can burn too hotly, as seen daily on Israeli roads. The needed cultural change in Israel is to cool this excessive heat just enough so that strong differences of opinion can be held while maintaining mutual respect, civility, dignity, and rational communication. These are the sine qua non required for unity–and unity is the sine qua non for Jewish survival. Even a minimally religious Jew resonates with the ancient, melodic call for unity: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” We must open our ears to hear and our hearts to feel the essential Jewish message of unity, not after, but before the enemy strikes, before the beast has passed through the gate. Yes, we need a strong military and as I’ve argued elsewhere, more armed Israel citizens, but ultimately only unity will strengthen the walls of Jerusalem.
This requires nothing less than a cultural transformation in the Jewish state of mind, emotion, and behavior. According to a Pew Research Center report, nearly 80% of Israelis believe in God, despite varying degrees of synagogue attendance. Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, acknowledged that without secular Zionists modern Israel would not have come to be. At the same time, without the religious idea that Israel is a land that God gave to the Jews, the unprecedented attachment to the Land during millennia of exile and the resurrection of the modern state would not have come to be and would not long endure. In Rav Kook’s imagination, in the present era at least, the secular and religious Jews are akin to the heart’s left and right hemispheres. We may seem to be pumping in different directions, but viewed from above the systolic and diastolic pulses are serving a greater unity. Lower-level compromises are needed to sustain the survival and vitality that guarantees, ‘Am Yisroel Chai!”
Whatever one’s understanding of God, unity is the quintessential defining essence. Belief in God involves making unity the superordinate concept that must guide every aspect of perception, thought, emotion, and action. Secondary to this should be personal convictions. As strong and well-reasoned as these may be, no human has the absolute certainty that their personal view is the ultimate truth. Therefore, it behooves us to maintain a degree of self-doubt and humility about our deepest held opinions that carries with it an inviolate respect for the opposing view and the person holding it. Vicious attacks and hatred are seethed in arrogance.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks noted that e pluribus unum, in diversity unity, also works the other way. In unity is diversity. In his classic book, The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy, asserted that God’s benevolence led to a state of plenitude in which His ultimate unity was expressed in “plenitude” in which diversity prevails. Human existence is defined by duality, diversity, and opposition. Paradoxically, this dazzling diversity leads to either searching for the underlying harmony or lusting to destroy that which is different. We must never lose sight of the unity that transcends these distinctions, the love of the other that preserves peace and order.
Derogatory screaming matches are driven by the self-inflated arrogance that fires a lethal blow at unity and thus breeds hatred and destruction. A modern illustration of the antidote to this state of mind is one of Menachem Begin’s cardinal principles. He vowed that he would never allow anything to lead to the disunity of civil war with Jews fighting Jews. Although he was willing to die for his personal convictions, he would relinquish them if the superordinate value of unity was threatened. When Ben Gurion fired on the ship Altalena in a dispute between the Haganah and Irgun over control of arms, Begin surrendered to preserve unity. Searching deeper into our ancient roots, the precedence of unity over confrontation was enshrined in Abraham’s dialogue with Lot:
Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left” (Genesis 13:1-9).
True, in more densely populated cities of modern Israel, we cannot “part ways” as easily. Regarding some issues, we may need to live in the same land that either selects judges appointed by the judiciary or through a different system; we may need to travel or refuse to travel in buses that offend our deep convictions about democracy or sanctity; we may need to suffer the limitation of our freedom to fly on Shabbat or to suffer sights that we feel undermine the holiness of the day. But we must never let any of these disputes devolve into the bitterness that fuels the disunity that has caused us to lose the land and remains a similar threat to this day. Is not the whole land before us?
So how do we increase the likelihood of preserving unity? One might think that we need to find another common enemy once the current one is defeated. The new enemy can be disunity itself. Draw the battle line to fight against the inner impulse to elevate the self and destroy the other. At the same time, never underestimate the power of a positive idea. Theodor Herzl recognized that establishing the Jewish State could not be achieved solely by physical means of cultivating the land, as important as this was. He focused also on cultivating a state of mind that envisioned the initially implausible but lofty idea of a country being born out of a barren wasteland where Jews could live in freedom and dignity. He had a dream.
Drawing on the inspiring and transformative speech of a hero from my first six decades in the United States, I have a dream.
I have a dream today that the Jews of Israel and abroad will come together to proclaim unity in the Land.
I have a dream that unity will ring from the heights of Mt. Hermon to the vaults of Yam Hamelech;
from serene Judean hills to the sparkling white city of Tel Aviv;
from the depths of Abraham’s wells to the celestial heights.
I have a dream that not a single rock will be thrown at nonbelievers,
nor a single derogatory slur made about the haredim.
I have a dream that every Jew will place unity in the deepest recess of their heart,
That from this love of unity will burst forth a lasting love and respect of our fellow Jews.
I have a dream that this will transform the transient unity born in war into an enduring unity in peace.
Looking through this new lens at both friends and opponents can bring into focus the unity that transcends the surface differences, so that we see, as poignantly noted by one of the survivors of the massacre, “We are all one.”
Let's begin preparations today for the 2nd day after:
–Vow never again to let divisive anger dominate over the unity and love of your fellow Jew.
–Blot out the memory of Hamas. Never forget those murdered and the suffering of the hostages, so their deaths will not have been in vain.
–After the victory, we need a common enemy. Make that eternal enemy a hatred of disunity.
–Greet every Jew with a warm and heartfelt, “Shabbat Shalom”.
–Be grateful for opponents (not enemies). Only totalitarian states allow one opinion.
–Listen more and speak less, to understand better those who disagree with you.
–Monitor your emotional temperature and cool down if it approaches anger.
–Consistent with your views regarding touch, hug those you care about ‘heart to heart’.
–Be humbler than before so you maintain your convictions, but lose your presumption that you own the truth.
–Stop honking your horn and yelling at other drivers.
–Disagree with the idea but respect and love the person holding it.
–Say 3 positive things to your spouse and children.
–Say something positive to a stranger.
–Smile more at people on the street.
–Seek out and engage in ‘random acts of unity’
Today there is an outpouring of beautiful unity throughout the Jewish world. This unity is vital in achieving total victory and freeing every hostage. In due time, the government and national security experts will address ‘the day after’.
It’s up to every one of us to prepare for ‘the 2nd day after’ so that we remain a nation of one heart and mind, and together never cease to proclaim unity throughout the land.
The writer, who holds a Ph.D., is a psychologist and former assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He has published pioneering scientific articles on positive psychology and coping with stress, as well as social and political commentaries in the Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva, Christian Science Monitor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the American Thinker, and others.